Many will stick with what they know as they budget for what they need to know a fatal mistake. It seems as many see no value in investing it what could be based on what should be. After all, why would anyone pay for a maybe? Well, the innovators are doubling down their bets that the old way sticks to that thinking.
“The price paid to explore can be defined while the true cost of unawareness; however, greater may never be known.”
It’s that undetermined fee toward improvement which usually stifles the good intentions to begin explorations journey. Leaders have to balance possibilities with current realities as they determine where to invest. Nothing invested in exploration will pay the divided of sameness until the well dries.
Today’s legacy organizations are fighting against innovators who are well funded and spend heavily on technology platforms; platforms which are entirely blindsiding the old way. Innovators are reinventing the means to desired outcomes at record speeds. The legacy way still disregards them or, discusses how the innovators are losing money and will fail. Fortunately, for the innovators, once the customers accept the new means to the outcomes they desire, the innovators win. As the legacy way scratches their head in disbelief.
As I watch my friends in the Imaging Channel continue to invest in yesterday, I question why? The facts are-everyone agrees that people will print less for the foreseeable future. So, would it not make sense to invest in ways to reinvent the customer's means to the desired outcome of printing less and less. Instead of investing in acquiring more customers who you then fight to keep by delivering the old means during a declining product use market. This situation of the declining usage market is causing those who compete for the customer in the same way, to fall victim to the customers who buy in the same way, and that spells vendor auction otherwise known a race to the bottom.
What if a dealer instead of buying a customer base for say two million. Instead invested two million in changing the means which their current and prospective customers use to get the desired outcome of a printed or copied document? Think about it; a couple million could pay for a whole lot of change. Now think about the private equity groups who are investing tens of millions in declining revenue and continue delivering like 1990. The question is, could an investment of tens of millions change the game and give the game changer the advantage? Well, it worked for UBER, Airbnb, Amazon, and Netflix. Does the Imaging Channel really believe what they do can't be disrupted?
“Sometimes we must evict from our minds some of all the answers and make room to explore the unknown.”
I can’t be the only one who is wondering what the game players in the Imaging Channel are envisioning. One could only hope they play their cards right. Because what I vision looks similar to the way the Taxi industry lost its value. When someone invests in what could be based on what should be and changes the means to the outcome of print, the Imaging Channel will face the same fate as the taxi industry, blockbuster, and fill in the blank.
The innovation to the deliverable will come as an innovative process which includes the A4 MFP. The new process will change everything about the current customer engagement. These changes to the means will start with who initiates customer engagement and how that is accomplished, threatening old school selling strategies. Changes which will affect how the end-users acquire the device will threaten legacy leasing models — the who and how of the service deliverable by inviting new players to reinvent an old game.
"During Market shifts the loudest cheerleaders for keeping the old way alive are from those who refuse to imagine how they will exist in the new way."
Ok, to those yelling that will never happen! Or, those who insist that your great relationships will allow you to deliver yesterday through all tomorrows. Please keep in mind what I am visioning only applies to about 80% of the print equipment deliverables end-users. The other 20% someone else can focus on. Most innovative investments go after the majority of a market place, don’t they?
So, who is interested in a focused disruption on a complacent game? I surely don’t have all the answers. However, I am dam sure not afraid to ask the questions and seek those with alternatives in-order to deliver the future of print equipment and its services to the present day customer.
“Status Quo is the killer of all that will be invented don’t get stuck in status quo.”
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Ray Stasieczko
CEO/Founder of TEASRA, The Innovation Channel
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